Without
by ncfan
Summary: Out on the Ice, all the children of Finarfin sleep in the same tent.


I own nothing.

* * *

While getting ready to lie down to bed, Findaráto stood up and looked over the fire and around the tent to do another head count. He didn't have as much to deal with as certain _other _people, but when one had four younger siblings, even if said siblings were grown, it was only prudent to keep a discreet check on his family. After all, enough of their number were dying on the Ice, either by starvation or by falling over the side into the water. After all, he was the head of the family now that their father…

Findaráto squeezed his eyes shut, and tried not to think about that.

Artanis was already asleep, huddled beneath a blanket and her cloak, curled close to the fire. She'd fallen asleep almost as soon as the host of the Noldor had stopped to settle down to rest; there wasn't enough food in Findaráto's camp to go around, so she'd apparently seen no need to stay awake and listen to certain brothers of hers complain about being hungry again. She looked relatively untroubled, though her face had grown unnaturally thin, just like all of them. Findaráto envied his sister her ability to sleep so easily.

Artaresto, though also lying down, was not sleeping. He let out a yelp as Aikanáro tripped over him, but his face had already seemed troubled before then, and his mouth contorted in a horrible grimace as he turned to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling of tent canvas over their heads, brow furrowed and eyes swirling with some tumultuous emotion. At times like this, he seemed younger than Artanis by far, and Findaráto was not the only one who seemed to think so; Aikanáro settled down beside Artaresto, tossing the one spare blanket over on top of him and mumbling to his younger brother to stay close to the fire.

Angaráto flashed Findaráto a tired, half-hearted smile as the pair of them settled down into the thick, yet all too thin comfort of their own pallets. They had to maneuver a great deal to find any level of comfort in lying down; with the five of them, their fire, and the belongings they'd taken from home and not yet lost, the children of Arafinwë were dealing with uncomfortably close quarters. And yet, though there were other tents that they could use, other tents that they could disperse into and thus find greater amounts of room available to them, they would not, could not. Without speaking of it amongst themselves, all five of them felt as though, if they did that, they would spiral away from each other until there would be no hope of ever finding each other again.

No, perhaps it was more as though they felt as though they would lose what little stability they had left, if they slept apart at night.

Just a short difference away, their cousins had their father Nolofinwë with them, and Lalwen dwelled with them as well. Across the sea, if any of them still lived, their other cousins had _their _father Fëanáro with them. They still had the heads of their families, and did not have to shoulder responsibilities they were utterly unprepared for.

But Arafinwë had left his children to face the Ice alone. Yes, the house of Nolofinwë was here, but Findaráto never felt quite so alone as he did when he made decisions on whether or not the rations would be divided amongst his host, when he was asked to make a decision on whether or not to send out hunting parties, when he was asked for advice by Nolofinwë on how long they should walk, all things that Arafinwë would have done, had he been there. His easy smile and good cheer melted away from him, all the calm assurance of his golden youth as remote as the starts over his head.

And there was more.

Angaráto let out a soft sigh beside him as he shifted the weight of his shoulders, a pensive look glazing his blue-gray eyes. "Missing Eldalótë?" Findaráto asked in a whisper, and Angaráto nodded without looking at him, no doubt remembering his dark-haired, gray-eyed wife, she of clever hands and sharper wit, she who had stayed in Aman and decried her husband's decision.

Findaráto had his own to think about, though they had never wed, and Amarië had responded to her betrothed's decision to depart with a refusal to join him and a cool, detached "Fare thee well" that cut deeper than any shout or scream, any stab of the knife. But then, when he thought about it, Amarië might have been a touch warmer than he remembered. The Ice, after all, left any who trod on it utterly without warmth, reaching all the way back to the past. It flavored all memories with cold, and he might just be remembering it wrong.

Somehow, he didn't think so.

And Findaráto knew that he remembered correctly how bereft he had felt when his father turned his back on him to leave, and that he'd not felt properly whole since then. There was no mistaking that.

* * *

Findaráto—Finrod  
Artanis—Galadriel  
Artaresto—Orodreth  
Aikanáro—Aegnor  
Angaráto—Angrod  
Arafinwë—Finarfin  
Nolofinwë—Fingolfin  
Fëanáro—Fëanor


End file.
